Thread: Newb to razor honing question

One detail.... there are two common cases for honing.

* In need of a bevel set or more

* Just a tuneup, shaved with it this morning and it was just OK.

When restoring or resetting a bevel the stack of hones is quite large.
The progression commonly begins at 1k and then works it way down
to 8K or finer. Honemasters collect a progression of hones that
optimize their time and effort.

The notion of a refresh is for a blade that shaved OK yesterday and only needs a touch up.
It can be made right with a single darn fine hone... (8k to 16k) . Since I have not
played with the Shapton 30000 I am going to ignore that for now. A recently
lapped flat modern darn fine hone will have enough tooth to make an
edge right as long as the bevel is still intact. Recently I have been "refreshing"
on a Sigma 13K hone and have found that the edge improved quickly
and was a delight to shave with.

Those that "refresh" with a pasted strop will get nice shaves for a while
but eventually a darn fine hone will have trouble getting the edge right.

This distinction is valuable because sending a blade out to a honemaster
can repair and reset the bevel and quickly progress down to a finished
edge. A shaver does not need to reset the bevel in normal use and
can "refresh" the edge with a well selected single hone.

Naturals... well they are all different so what works, works.

As far as grit progression goes a lot depends on the media.
No longer available at Woodcraft the abrasive film was
a simple three grit progresson 15micron, 5micron, 0.3micron
and the jumps were not a problem. In fact the 0.3 micron
film makes for a deluxe refresh.